“Two thousand bucks worth of floundering,” he whined.
“It may take five thousand, but it’s better than fifty,” I reminded him. “I’m charging you half my usual rate because I respect your role in the community, not because I think you’re a model citizen. Get over it.”
Mickey came in with our food and I led them up to the top floor, which contained a kitchenette and dining area. Soon, cartons littered the table and all I could hear was slurping and munching and chomping – and that was just Mickey. I pulled bottles of ice-cold Anchor Steam out of the fridge for everyone and Frank and I joined in. The spicy cashew chicken perked me right up and soon I was suppressing garlic-beer burps.
Going out the wide French doors to stand on my balcony, I breathed in the cold evening air and gazed up and down Hill Street. What looked like the same homeless woman I’d seen before rooted in a garbage can across and down a couple of houses. If I hadn’t been replete and slightly relaxed from the food and drink I probably would have called for a black-and-white to come by and pick her up, but today I decided to let it be.
I waved to Mrs. Covey across the street as she peered out the window from inside her brightly lit house. I saw her spot the bag lady and pick up her phone. Oh well. Sorry, old girl, I thought. You’re about to be escorted to the nearest shelter by San Francisco’s finest.
“I’m going to hit the hay,” Frank called from inside. “Back to the Five Star, I guess.”
I briefly thought to let him stay here in my office building. I had a bedroom for myself just in case and Mickey slept on the couch downstairs when he wanted to, but…maybe if Frank hadn’t been such a hound dog I might have. Even more briefly I considered and discarded the idea of bringing him home to Mom. The only attractive part of that scenario was the way it would drive her crazy trying to figure out our relationship, but subjecting Frank to my mother wouldn’t be fair to him.
“I’ll run you over,” I said as I came in and shut the balcony door. “It’s not safe this time of night. I’m assuming you don’t carry.”
“Carry what?”
Sigh. “Dumb question. This is California. Anyway, follow me. Mickey, you can have the leftovers if you clean up.”
“Right, Boss,” he said, happily reaching for the rest of my cashew chicken. Ling’s gave big portions.
I led Frank down two flights and out the back to Molly, making sure the door locked on the way. I’d had new automatic hardware installed recently.
“Nice ride,” he said as he got in.
“Frank, Molly. Molly, Frank.”
He looked around the interior of the Subaru Impreza rally car. “You named your ride?”
“Sure. Strap in.” I helped him adjust the four-point restraints.
“We going to a race?”
“Just hang on, little man,” I said as the fun flared through my system with the revving of Molly’s blown six. Backing carefully out, as soon as I exited the courtyard I punched it, power-sliding out into the street and around the first corner.
“Oh – my – God – would you slow down?”
I grinned like a maniac as I raced the short distance up and down the hilly streets. By the time we pulled up in front of the Five Star, Frank was sweating, his eyes bulged and his breathing came fast, hands gripping the seat and the door handle. “Are you done now?” he asked.
“Yeah. What did I tell you, Frank? Much safer than walking.”
“Right. Is there a bus line to Granger’s Ford?” He popped the buckle and slid out the door onto the sidewalk.
“Shut up and have a good night, Frank. What time do you need to be home?”
“I can push it until nine, since they already think I’m sick.”
“Okay. We leave at five thirty sharp to beat the traffic.”
“No problem.” Frank wiped his hands on his sweatshirt. “Is the trip going to be like that tomorrow?”
“Every damned minute.”
Shaking his head, he shut the door. I watched him trudge into the run-down modest hotel and smiled, considering the white-knuckle ride a bit of representative payback for all the women he’d used and discarded over the years.
Rather than park Molly back at the office, I drove home and squeezed her into the tiny driveway in front of the garage, her rear end almost in the street. As early as I was leaving, it wouldn’t matter that I had blocked the sidewalk. Inside, I chatted with Mom for a bit, and then went upstairs with Snowflake, half a bottle of wine and the latest Lee Child, only to fall asleep on page 43.
Chapter 6
Somewhere a baby cried, but its voice sounded like a buzz saw and it began a dance on my chest. Gradually this resolved itself into the noise of my alarm going off at omigawd five a.m., accompanied by Snowflake kneading his paws into my abdomen in protest. I hadn’t gotten up this early since I left the force. A quick shower and I was out the door, kissing my mother on the cheek as she handed me a cup of herbal chai twin to her own.
“Blessed be,” she said as I saluted her with the stuff on the way out prior to pouring it straight onto the bush by the front steps. Not fair to the plant, I know; I hoped the concoction wouldn’t kill it. Mom must be starting one of her Wiccan phases and I made a mental note to sleep at my office rather than be subjected to the rituals of bell, book and candle for the next few months.
I think I preferred Buddhist.
It actually felt pretty good being underway this early. Frank and I could grab breakfast on the road, but I wanted to be out past Livermore before rush hour really stuck it to us.
I parked in the hotel’s curbside loading zone and cursed. 5:32 a.m. and Frank was nowhere in sight. I went inside to retrieve him, using my official-looking fake cop shield to get the room number out of the dozing night clerk.
Banging on the door of 315 brought no answer. Could he be fast asleep? Or did he slip out to the nearest bar last night and meet some hottie, find a street dealer for illicit goodies, or both?
I called his cell number and a chill went through me as I heard his phone ringing on the other side of the badly painted door.
Oh, hell. I ran down the stairs, flashed my badge and grabbed the clerk by the collar. “315. Key. Now.” I shook him until he passed it to me.
Good thing I was in excellent shape as I ran back up and then jammed the key in the slot. Slipping my automatic into my hand was a reflex; I didn’t really think I’d need it, but it was something solid to hold onto when I did see my worst fears manifest.
My stomach lurched and I fought down nausea as I stared into the room. Frank hung from the ceiling fixture, a thin nylon cord around his neck, his head up near the light, the room’s one chair knocked over beneath him. From the swelling of his throat and head it had been several hours since it happened. Only a medical examiner could give me more detail.
I suppressed the impulse to rush and cut him down. He was clearly beyond help. Instead, I took a slow, careful walk around the room, not looking at the body. No matter how many I saw, they still made me queasy, especially if I knew the victim.
On the night table were a dozen pills, Quaaludes by the look of them, a rock of crack, a pipe and a few other items of paraphernalia. I sniffed the air, but didn’t smell anything except dust, sweat and the sour stench of cheap hotel overlaid with pine cleaner and air freshener.
I leaned down, bringing my nose close to the glass of the crack pipe. Very faint. Then I passed over to the bathroom where I saw a lone plastic cup still in its supposedly sanitary shrink-wrap, a hand towel and neatly folded washcloth. The shower and curtain were dry, as was the drain.
Once I had seen all I wanted to without disturbing anything, I pulled out my phone and dialed straight into SFPD Homicide, hoping someone was up.
“Allsop,” came the voice, and I suppressed a vulgarity. My former partner Lieutenant Jay Allsop was not a fan of mine, but I didn’t really have the option of trying to track down one of my few friends in the Department while standing staring at Frank’s body. He would already be incli
ned to view me as the chief suspect, out of malice if nothing else.
Besides, when I worked Homicide we always treated the body’s discoverer as a suspect. Just the law of proximity.
“Jay, this is Cal. I got something for you.”
“At six o’clock in the morning? What can’t I do for you today, Sherlock?”
I held on to my temper and said evenly, “I want to report a murder.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. Staring right at the body. Do you want me to call 9-1-1 or would you like to be first on the scene?”
Jay was smart enough to know I was throwing him a bone, even a peace offering. Homicide detectives were seldom first on any crime scene and usually had to contend with whatever damage civilians and clumsy uniforms had done in the meantime.
“Where are you?” he asked, dodging the question and therefore any need to seem grateful.
“Five Star Hotel off of Harrison. Room 315.”
“Ten minutes. Stay put. Don’t touch anything.”
Like I’m some rookie, I thought as he hung up, but I complied faithfully, backing carefully out of the room and closing the door, unlocked. I turned around to see the night clerk staring over my shoulder with a shocked look on his face.
“Listen, uh, Rodney,” I said, looking at his nametag. “The police are on their way and it’s going to get real busy around here. They’ll want to talk to you.”
“I thought you were the police,” he said with narrowed eyes.
“I never said I was a cop.”
“But the badge…”
“Just says ‘Security’ on it. I can’t be responsible for your assumptions.”
“Ah…” His expression turned sly in that way that only night-crawling city rats can. “I’m pretty sure you said you was a cop when you got the midget’s room number outta me.”
I sniffed. “At least, that’s what you’re going to say, unless…?”
Rodney smirked.
I pulled out my money clip from my front pocket – I don’t carry a purse on the job and pickpockets are always a problem – and peeled off a twenty. He took the bill and fingered it for a minute, looking determined, until I added another one. “Don’t push it,” I said when he looked like he would try to squeeze more out. “I’ll tell them you admitted to dealing the drugs I found in there.”
“I didn’t do nothin’ like that!” he protested, stuffing the money in his pants.
“Then be happy with the forty and do like I told you. I used to be a cop and I still got friends,” I half-lied.
“All right, already. I have to get back to the desk.”
“Just keep your mouth shut.” I watched him scurry to the stairs, and then glared at a middle-aged woman who had opened her door down the hall. “Nothing to see here, ma’am. Please go back inside.” I guess I could still project my cop attitude, because she did.
When Allsop came up the stairs it made me feel better to see he was puffing, even more out of shape than when I’d last seen him a couple months ago. He sneered at me, but his rookie partner, Tanner Brody, smiled. I gave him a wink.
“Well, well, well,” the lead detective started in before I cut him off by the simple expedient of raising one hand and swinging the door open with the other. The sight of the hanging man short-circuited whatever sarcastic speech he had prepared.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Yeah. This is Franklin Jackson, special education teacher and resident of Granger’s Ford out in the valley. Comes into the city sometimes to work the drag queen circuit and party.”
“And you know this because?”
“He was my client. Someone was blackmailing him with evidence of his extracurricular activities so he came to me.”
“What kind of evidence?” Brody asked.
“He showed me pictures on his cell phone and a text. Him having sex with a woman. Nothing illegal, actually.”
“Where’s the phone at?” Jay asked as he walked into the room, pulling on a latex glove.
“I didn’t see it when I came in, but it could be on him or in a drawer. It must be here somewhere because I heard it when I phoned him from outside the door…” I pulled out my phone and redialed. A moment later the ringtone came from the bedside table drawer.
Allsop opened it, lifting a Gideons’ Bible off the phone and setting it aside before picking up the jangling device. I hung mine up.
“I see that was your second call, so your story checks out,” he said, as if reluctant to admit it.
“Frank came to me yesterday morning after he got the text. Also, his car had been stolen. I was going to give him a ride back home this morning, since for obvious reasons he can’t drive just any old rental. I found him here and I called you.”
Allsop sniffed and Brody echoed him. Both looked like they shopped for their suits at thrift stores. No excuse for that, on detectives’ salaries. The younger man leaned over and gingerly picked up the crack pipe with his gloved hand. “Your boy was having a little fun, huh?”
While I didn’t want to antagonize Allsop, the kid was fair game. I liked him, but he had a lot to learn. “You sure, rookie?”
“Um…”
“Where’s the lighter?” I paused. “Where’s the recent smell of burning rock?”
“Right.” Brody had the decency to look sheepish for a moment before taking another stab at some clever observation. “So he forgot his lighter, took too many Ludes and got depressed and hung himself over the blackmail.”
“How did you ever pass the exam?” I asked Brody good-naturedly.
“Slept with the teacher.”
“Cut him some slack, Cal,” Allsop said.
Aha. A victory of sorts. “That almost sounded like a friendly request, Jay. You want to take him through it or shall I?”
“You do it,” he said, which was what I expected. If he explained, there was always the risk of me sharpshooting him or bringing up something he had missed. If I did it, he could try to poke holes in my theories. Any reader of mystery stories would recognize the technique. Sherlock Holmes always had Watson explain his observations first. If the good doctor was right, Holmes could applaud him and claim his protégé was finally learning, adding a few choice tidbits. If wrong, Holmes could tsk-tsk and shake his head, going on to explain what any fool should have seen in the first place. It was a perfect win-win game as long as the one going last played it right.
I didn’t care. I wasn’t on the force anymore. Office politics and pissing contests meant nothing to me unless they helped me solve this case. I still decided to get my pound of flesh from the kid. Flaying him would build character. All part of being the rookie.
I said, “So on the table we see both Quaaludes and crack. Crack is a cheap street drug, ten bucks a rock. Ludes are prescription and those look real to me. Ten bucks a pill. That’s at least a hundred bucks worth right there. Doesn’t really add up. A typical party night for a user would be a half-dozen rocks and one or two Ludes to let him down easy, not one rock and a dozen pills. And as we know that pipe hasn’t been used tonight, the drugs must have been planted by someone not very knowledgeable about the street.”
Allsop nodded at me with a supercilious smile on his face, as if he knew this all along – which he probably did. I’d call him a jerk, not incompetent.
“Then there’s the bathroom,” I said, walking over to the door.
Brody stepped inside and looked around. “Looks unused. Not even the hand towel.”
“Right. He showered yesterday morning I’m sure, then the maid serviced the room. So he came in and whatever took place happened before he got a chance to clean up this evening. Anything else?”
“Umm…” It took Brody a minute, but he got it. “No bath towel.”
“Bingo. The killer took it, I’m thinking. Maybe he used it to clean something up – blood or water – or to wipe the place down for prints.”
“Or maybe the maid just forgot to leave him one,” Jay interjected.
“No
t likely.” I shrugged. “What else, rookie?”
“I dunno.”
I pointed at the pristine plastic wrap around the cup. “You thought he’d taken some Ludes, but the cup is unused. Nothing in the wastebasket.”
“He might have used his hand to drink,” Allsop broke in. “Or there were two cups and the perp took the one that was used.”
“Maybe. None of this is conclusive, but it’s starting to add up to ‘not suicide,’ don’t you think?”
“Thin, Cal.”
I flapped my eyebrows at Allsop. “There’s more, as you well know…and if you don’t…”
“Carry on,” he said airily, waving a diffident hand.
I shot him the finger before turning to Brody again.
“The Bible on top of the phone in the drawer is interesting,” I said. “See if those blackmail pictures or the text is still on it. I’m willing to bet they’ve been deleted. Maybe want to have a computer forensics guy take a look. Might get them back. Also check his incoming and outgoing calls.”
“The Bible?” Brody said.
“On top of the phone. Check it.”
The kid carefully riffled the book with his gloved hands. “Nothing.”
“Then it might be some kind of religious statement or ritual.”
“Come on, Cal,” Jay said. “You’re really fishing.”
“Just laying a foundation of doubt, Lieutenant. Besides what might be on the phone, here’s the really conclusive part.” I pointed at the body still suspended near the ceiling, holding the pose.
Jay got it after a long moment, or at least he faked getting it. Brody didn’t, so I played Socrates. “How far are his feet off the floor?”
“Umm…maybe three, three and a half feet.”
“How tall is that chair, you think?”
Brody stared. “Not tall enough,” he finally admitted. “Not for a midget.”
“They’re called little people, Brody. You better not miss your next sensitivity training. But you’re right. No way he could have hanged himself the way it’s supposed to look like. Hell, he couldn’t have even reached the light fixture to tie that line to it. So, not suicide. I bet the ME will find he was knocked out somehow, and then hoisted up.” I brushed my palms theatrically together. “Thus endeth the lesson.” I looked at Allsop.
In a Bind Page 7
